Supreme Court rules McDaniel must pay to review poll books

The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected McDaniel's petition for a court order to demand that Harrison County Circuit Clerk Gayle Parker release poll books from the June 24 Republican Party primary runoff election.

HARRISON COUNTY, MS (WLOX) -

WLOX News has learned that Chris McDaniel's campaign will not have access it wanted to Harrison County poll books. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected McDaniel's petition for a court order to demand that Harrison County Circuit Clerk Gayle Parker include poll books in his review of ballots from the June 24 Republican Party primary runoff election.

Instead, the McDaniel campaign will have access to poll books without the dates of birth of voters, and according to Harrison County's attorney, he will have to reimburse the taxpayers for the actual costs of redacting the date of birth from each poll book.

The court ruled that there is no legal requirement that poll books be included in the contents of ballot boxes. The order released on Thursday said poll books should be considered official records of all persons qualified to vote in a particular county and should be properly preserved by the circuit clerk.

The court also found that the circuit clerk must redact all voters' social security numbers, telephone numbers, birth date and age information before the records can be examined.​